Past, Present, and Future
by the ramblin rose
Summary: Michandrea, one-shot. The past, the present, and the future. It all mattered.


**AN: This is just a short little thing that I did for an anon that asked for Michandrea using the line "Don't ask me that."**

 **I own nothing from the Walking Dead.**

 **I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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"Don't ask me that," Andrea said. She stared straight into Michonne's eyes. None of her classic tells were there. If she'd glanced to the side or taken a moment to look toward the ground, Michonne would have had her answer, but she kept her eyes unwaveringly locked on Michonne's.

Michonne had waited what she considered a reasonable amount of time. Andrea's physical injuries were healed, and those were the only ones they could be sure would ever heal.

"It's a fair question," Michonne responded. "And that's not an answer."

"Because I'm not going to answer it, Michonne," Andrea said. "I can't believe you even asked me that in the first place."

"Do you love him?" Michonne repeated, ignoring Andrea's offense at a question that she apparently saw as unreasonable. "Do you love him? I deserve to know. He's still alive. He's still out there. And, more than likely, we haven't seen the last of him. So I want to know. I _deserve_ to know. Do you still love him? You owe me enough to answer me."

"And you've never owed me enough to answer anything I've ever asked," Andrea responded. "Not who you are or...where you come from. Not even why you wanted to leave Woodbury in the first place. But you've always got questions for me and I'm always supposed to answer them."

"You want to talk about the past," Michonne said. "That world? The one that you want to talk about? It doesn't exist anymore. The person you're asking me about? Her life? It doesn't matter because _she_ doesn't exist anymore. She died when the dead started walking. The past is done. It's over. That's why I don't talk about her. About who I was. I'm not her anymore." Michonne felt her frustration rising. Andrea always seemed to know just the right things to say—and just the right tone of voice to use, even—to get a rise out of her. Michonne wasn't unfair enough to think that she even meant to do it. It wasn't on purpose. Andrea just seemed to be _made_ to push Michonne's buttons.

 _All of them._

"You should have trusted me when I told you that we needed to leave Woodbury," Michonne continued. "You should have gone with me."

"You never told me _why_ , Michonne," Andrea said. "If you'd told me why? Really talked to me for once? I'd have been out of that fence right behind you, but you never told me why."

"I shouldn't have had to," Michonne snapped back at Andrea. "You should have trusted me."

Andrea continued to stare at Michonne in the intense way she'd been doing before. She barely even seemed to be blinking. Very little these days seemed to unnerve Michonne, but she sometimes felt unnerved by Andrea's stare.

"If the person you were before all this is gone with the past," Andrea said, "then so is the person that _I_ was. So is the Michonne that found Andrea I the woods and the Andrea that owed Michonne so much for saving her life a few times over. And the Michonne that left Woobury. She's gone too. The Andrea that stayed behind. They're _all_ gone, Mich. They're all stuck in a past that's too far gone to even talk about. You said so yourself. So I don't have to answer your question. That's in the past too."

"I'm worried about now," Michonne said. "The future. _Our_ future. If he came back today or tomorrow. If he promised to build you another kingdom. Better than anything we could have here. Do you love him?"

"No," Andrea said, almost spitting the word at Michonne. "No. I don't love him. And—I really can't believe that you would ask me that or that you would think, after all that's happened, that you would think that I'd go back to him. That I'd leave _you_ and go back to _him_." Andrea finally broke the hold her eyes had on Michonne and she went to sit on the edge of the cot in the cell that they shared. "I guess I'm just supposed to trust you. I guess none of it is ever supposed to be a two-way street."

Michonne's throat tightened at the words that Andrea said. She heard the hurt in them and she recognized the truth. The truth, though, was a hard pill for Michonne to swallow. It really always had been.

"Did you love him?" Michonne asked.

"It doesn't matter," Andrea said. "It's in the past."

"Do you love me?" Michonne asked.

"I fell in love with you before you were speaking complete sentences to me," Andrea said, laughing to herself.

"Do you still love me?" Michonne asked.

Andrea looked at her again and nodded her head.

"Yes," Andrea said. "I never stopped, Mich. Not even when you left." She shook her head at Michonne. "I _never_ loved him. But you left. You wanted to leave. You didn't need me—and you made that pretty clear. Maybe I—needed the comfort he could give me. I loved the security that he could provide. But I didn't love him. I was already in love and she...she broke my heart."

Michonne turned her back on Andrea. She pretended to be restless and paced the tight space of the cell. Really, she simply didn't want Andrea to see her at the moment. She stopped her walking back and forth when Andrea spoke again.

"Just answer me one question," Andrea said. "Just the one. Did you ever love me, Mich?"

Michonne kept her position for a moment before she finally turned to show her face to Andrea again. She wanted Andrea to really see her. She wanted her to see all there was to see.

"I did," Michonne said. "I still do. And—I always will. If you'll let me."

"Past, present, and future," Andrea mused. "It's a pretty good offer." She gave Michonne the soft and coy smile that Michonne knew that Andrea realized was irresistible.

"It's all I have," Michonne said.

"I'll take it," Andrea responded.


End file.
